This month, an inspector told the school: “Senior leaders, governors and the trust are not taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the last Section 5 inspection in order for the school to become a good school.”

The original inspection found the school for 14 to 19-year-olds required improvement in four key areas related to leadership, teaching, and pupils’ personal development and academic achievement. Its Years 12 and 13 study programmes were rated “good”.

Some of the main problems noted were a high rate of absenteeism, teachers not having high enough expectations of what students can achieve, and pupils not making enough progress, especially in maths and English.

Bath Studio School headteacher Colin Cattanach

A follow-up inspection by an Ofsted inspector in December found that the principal, Colin Cattanach, and his senior team had taken steps to address the problems highlighted, with some success.

Inspector Paul Williams noted improvements in senior leaders’ judgements of teaching quality, organisational focus on student attendance, attainment and development, and support for children with special needs.

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“However, progress has not been sufficient in the key areas of pupils’ attendance, pupils’ outcomes in key stage 4 and governance,” Mr Williams wrote in a letter to Mr Cattanach, school governors and the Wellsway Multi-Academy Trust, which runs the school.

Mr Williams noted that “a high proportion of pupils are persistently absent from school” and suggested that teachers should get extra training in recording pupil attendance.

He also said the school’s governors needed to upskill, and admonished them for being ”slow to react to the situation” at the school.

Bath Studio School in Frome Road is run by the Wellsway Multi-Academy Trust

“Governors are passionate about improving the achievement of pupils,” Mr Williams said. “However, their ability to analyse assessment information and so understand the performance of different groups of pupils in the school has only recently begun to improve.”

Finally, addressing Wellsway Multi-Academy Trust, the inspector was critical of its support for the school since its first Ofsted inspection in April 2017.

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Mr Cattanach said: “This inspection looked solely at years 10 and 11 as the sixth form is judged by Ofsted to be ‘Good’.

“The school is committed to improving standards for our students.

“We are working very positively with parents to improve attendance and we are confident that our students will achieve improved results in the summer.

“We are working with Ofsted to accelerate our improvement and as a school, we are resolutely committed to bring key stage 4 up to the same good standard as our sixth form as quickly as possible.”

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